Please Forgive Me, Percy Jackson
by the fifth angel
Summary: A mortal from Goode looks in on the life of Percy Jackson, trying to figure out what makes the black-haired boy so special.
1. Chapter 1

**This chapter takes place around** _ **The Battle of the Labyrinth**_ **. For the sake of forewarning, this gets off to a pretty slow start, the narrator takes a while to get used to, and there's a little bit of vulgar language, but nothing super terrible.**

The terrible thing about life is how bad it all seems. You're born, you go to a school infested with assholes or whatever, you get a boring job, and then die. There's some stuff in between – vacations, sickness, internships, retirement – but in the ultimate scheme of things, those are just little breaks. And that's pretty much it.

That might have been too blunt. Was that too blunt? Actually, don't answer that. I don't really care. I don't think I have a very graceful way of saying things. In fact, Mister Blofis offered to tutor me after school every week on Tuesdays, since I wasn't doing too well in English class. I wasn't doing well in English class because I was distracted by the curious boy sitting next to me. But I'm also just not very good at English – I really don't have a natural tendency to it.

I really tried the tutoring, but I just couldn't bring myself to like it. Maybe it's just something I'm meant to be bad at, you know? The way he talked was so boring and I really didn't understand what he was telling me about conjugates. I asked him about his stepson, but Mister Blofis got a little annoyed and asked me to stop getting distracted, and that we could talk about it afterwards. And then I spent the entire tutoring session thinking about Percy Jackson and how _weird_ that kid is, and Mister Blofis kept telling me to get back on track. The arrangement really didn't seem to be working, and so I stopped the tutoring after only one session.

That made my mom kind of upset – she really yelled at me that night. She told me I should be a better child, like my brother. She told me I was always unhappy no matter what they did for me, always unsatisfied, always "filled with gross hatred" – her words, not mine. That didn't end well, really, but I don't wanna talk about it very much.

Later that night, my dad came into my room. My dad, I'll tell you, was the jock archetype from high school. He grew up in Kansas and loved to hunt as a kid – he has some guns locked away in the safe in his room (the code to the safe was my brother's birthday, of course) – and has greying hair and liked his face clean-shaven and has an expensive watch on his wrist. We're not all that much alike. "Why can't you just like high school, like I did?"

"It's not that _easy,_ " I told him, "It's just so boring that it's easy to get distracted."

"Why is it so boring? I remember high school was fun – watching the football games on Friday nights, classics class, that kind of stuff."

"We don't even have a football team – we're in the _city,_ there's no room for a goddamn football field in the middle of Manhattan," he gave me a glare when I cursed, looking like he wanted to scold me, but I continued talking, "And everyone there is just the _same._ They're all boring."

"You don't like _anyone_ in your entire school?"

I gave a slight nod. "Everyone's an exact carbon-copy of each other. Except for…" I trailed off. Except for Percy Jackson.

"Except for who?" My dad asked.

"It doesn't matter. Can you just, maybe, get out of my room?" I curled my fingers up, nails digging into the flesh of my palms, really not in the mood to talk anymore, "And close the door on the way out."

Percy Jackson was a different, kid, alright. I guess I should probably explain how I met him, because it'll just show you how _strange_ that little prick is.

I had gone to a private school for most of elementary school. I hated the uniforms, the collared shirts bugged my neck, and sometimes I would sit in a bathroom stall until I succeeded in giving myself a bloody nose just so I could sit in the nurse's office for the rest of the school day. I was eventually told to leave that school because my "destructive behavior" was "distracting" and supposedly having a "negative" impact on my peers. It was _not,_ by the way. I was punching myself in the nose, not giving nicotine to preteens. But whatever, I really couldn't care less what the administrative staff there thought of me.

My brother died, too, my last year of elementary school. He wasn't very old – only a year older than me. I really didn't realize how much I loved him – the lively green eyes and grin and blue sweatshirts he loved to wear – until I never really saw all that again. I didn't sleep for three nights after that. My parents considered putting me in a mental hospital, I swear to god. They wanted me gone – I reminded them too much of my older brother and I was driving myself crazy because it really wasn't easy for me. I mean, I barely even got to say goodbye to the kid, he just slipped from under my grasp. I… I regret that. I regret that a lot.

But they didn't, obviously – I mean, they didn't send me to an institution. After seeing my brother die, I think the last thing they wanted was to see me locked away like some psychotic freak in those upstate facilities – they take you in and don't let you out. Do they still even have those? They should really be illegal, I'm telling you. It's like we're still living in the damn 1950s.

Not insane enough for an asylum, not sane enough to be around other kids; too depressing to be in the typical school environment, too energetic to sleep all day. I really didn't leave my parents with many choices. That made them upset, really – they spent long summer nights trying to figure out what the hell to do with me during the approaching school year. Dad suggested military school out in Vermont or Maine or whatever, but mom quickly shut down that idea. Mom suggested I try a Montessori school – you know, one of those schools where they let the kids roam free and do no work. But dad sad that was useless and a waste of money – _a waste of money!_ This was coming from the man who always told me, "Education is priceless." My ass!

No school seemed like the right fit for a boy like me. So then I was homeschooled. My mom was my teacher, and my living room was the classroom. Most days, I would sit on the couch, cushioned by the abundance of pillows I would shove behind me, filling out worksheets and doing online quizzes – it was real easy to just look up the answers. I would have leftover pizza in the fridge for lunch and a scoop of ice cream as I clicked through an online presentation about art history or whatever. Sometimes, my mom would take me on "fieldtrips" to the grocery store, where she'd let me pick out different foods and shove the cart down the crowded aisles. Twice a month, she would take me to the museums downtown and I'd be able to look at the statues and paintings and whatever without being ushered along by a docent, without being scolded by a teacher or wearing one of those stupid matching t-shirts that all of the kids on fieldtrips wear so they don't get lost. I liked it, because I could wake up late and learn in my pajamas, and then get a $1 hotdog piled with too much ketchup from to the vendor on the corner several blocks away, still in my sweatpants.

Of course, it wasn't all sunshine and butterflies. My mom got on my nerves. She would hassle me about work and I didn't like being corrected because she was stern and patronizing, trying to mock the tone of a teacher, and then she would tell me that if I were my brother, I would be a better kid. That my brother was better this, my brother that. It's all about the dead kid, of course. It would make me so irritated I would threaten to grab the scissors and cut off all of my hair. I still had work, too. It was mandated by the state. And it was just as pointless as normal schoolwork, and doing it made me frustrated. I would do it all wrong so my mom would correct my work for me. Then she would tell me that my brother would do it right, and if he was fucking alive, he would do it better. That made me feel like shit, it really did, since that's not a good thing to tell a kid who is really just trying their best. Tears would start protruding from my tear ducts as I would try to scream at the top of my lunges, and then my mom would take away my dinner or whatever, and I would end up sobbing and crying, and then my dad would come home, and I'd have to wipe away my tears, but I'd hold it in all night.

Sometimes, I think of my anger as a material object. Like, I have all of this collected anger just piled up in me and I've never really had any good release for it. I'm scared that one day it will all explode and it'll be terrible, and then I'll hate myself even more and my mom will yell at me and my dad will be disappointed. Whatever. Fuck it.

What were we talking about? Oh, the cons of being homeschooled. Another thing that sucked about it – though not as much as all of the other shit I just went through – was the stereotypes. Sometimes, when I was bored in the waiting room at the doctor's office, or waiting in the airport for hours for a delayed flight, or whatever, I'd talk to other kids. I would tell them I was homeschooled, and their eyes would light up curiosity and pile me with at least half-a-dozen questions. Most commonly, they'd ask me "Isn't being homeschooled lonely?"

It wasn't very much. I didn't need other people. In case of you haven't really caught on, other people are shit. I'm not desperate, I'm not clingy, and I didn't need middle-school friends that will ditch me the next time they see fit. I would tell that to people, and they'd give me a weird look, a little disturbed, and tell me that "everyone needs friends." I thought that was shit. I didn't _need_ friends, I didn't need anything.

"It's fun," I would insist. Sure, I got yelled at and cried a lot. But while other kids did group projects and "gained valuable tools for socializing" – real bull, I'll tell you – I was playing Call of Duty in my room. I really liked that – I had good aim, and every time I shot something, I felt a little skip of adrenaline brush over my heart like an egg wash being glazed onto bread. (I'm really telling you, I'm not very good with English. My metaphors could use some help.)

As fun as gaming was, the spats with my mother continued. In fact, they only got worse. By around the time I was 14, my mom realized she couldn't handle all of my "personality" – that's how she phrased it – and the process of applying to college was too much to handle on her own, and so my parents did what seemed to be the only choice: shove me back into the American school system. Absolutely terrific.

We shopped around for a while, looking at all of the different schools. New York certainly doesn't have a shortage of schools. New York does, however, have a shortage of _good_ schools that I liked. I had some ground rules; my new school would have absolutely no uniforms, it couldn't be more than thirty minutes from our house, and there wouldn't be a lot of homework.

Most of the high schools were very preppy – they had those white button-ups and polished oxford shoes with crisp socks, several hours of homework. The others we looked at took an hour to get to in the morning traffic – something I was not a fan of. When my dad suggested boarding school again, I accused him of trying to get me away from the family. That argument didn't end well. We all – me, my mom, and dad – screamed at each other around the dinner table until we were all too tired to even comprehend what any of us were saying. The next day, we looked at another school – fairly large, an average of two hours of homework a night, and a good reputation among colleges. Three matriculations to Harvard in the past two years, the tour guide told us.

My parents agreed this one would be good. I felt too tired to object. Out of all of the schools I'd seen, this one seemed the most okay. I spent the next few days with my mom filling out all of that damn paperwork – loads of it. We saved, probably, ten whole trees by doing most of it online. Then it was done. I was officially enrolled there, ready to start there this fall.

And that's how I ended up at Goode's orientation.

The moment I walked into the building, I decided I hated the smell – Frebreze mixed with some kind of Lysol, definitely the school's attempt to mask the depressing stench of sadness and tiredness for the orientation – and the goddamn tiling on the floors was obnoxious. I ignored the red "GOODE IS GOOD" sign strung up above the lockers, because I thought it was tacky. I ignored the people, too, because most of the boys smelled like hot, summery sweat and the girls turned their heads away from me. I sat on a lonely, cold bleacher seat. People sat next to me, but didn't talk to me, but I didn't feel lonely. I swear to god, I don't feel lonely.

The real orientation began, and there was a speech about learning and growth and whatever from the principal – a balding man with a ton of stomach chub and thick, rectangular glasses – and a dance routine from some of the cheerleaders. Everyone was a real fan when this blonde girl did a flip – nearly everyone applauded. I didn't, obviously. I just didn't think it was that good.

I was about to fall asleep from because it was just that terrible, but then I heard a chorus of soft whispers – "sorry" and "excuse me" – from behind. I craned my neck a little, to see a red head girl getting out of the bleachers, followed by a wimpy looking kid trying to get out of the bleachers. I considered going with them, to escape, but they looked like pretty obnoxious kids, so I decided against it.

I went back to my weird state between consciousness and slipping into a light sleep. There were more speeches from teachers that all sounded saccharinely saturated – "we're _so_ excited for a new school year" – and a small performance from the marching band or whatever.

The good news is that the orientation did get a lot more interesting. The bad news is that I have no fucking clue what actually happened since it was all sort of a blur. But the next thing I remember is that the fire alarm went off, and as we were evacuating, we passed the band room. It was a smoky mess, I could almost taste the tangible flavor of the fire in my mouth, like a dry, ashy towel being rubbed against my tongue.

"Jeez, I think the band room is on fire!" Some dumbass kid said as we were shuffled by, ushered by teachers. No fuck, really? _I_ personally just assumed that the smoke was from a very realistic smoke machine. I bit my tongue, though, because I knew that if I said something like that, some teacher would find a way to blame the entire thing on me.

I tried to peer more into the band room, since I'd never seen arson in the act before, but I didn't get a very good look. I did see triangles and trumpets scattered all around, thrown almost like they had been weapons. I overheard a man with pepper-and-salt looking hair – I would later learn his name to be Mister Blofis – talk about his girlfriend's son. Apparently, those two kids had run off to the band room, had a tumble with one of the cheerleaders, set her on _fire,_ then jumped out of the window. Man, I wish I was there to witness that.

Mister Blofis was pretty adamantly defending his stepson or whatever, but the entire thing was really just a crazy flaming mess – and literally. The school was evacuated – because "we shouldn't stay in a building with a live fire," the teachers insisted – and orientation came to a pretty abrupt end.

I was pretty happy about that – I mean, what sane kid wouldn't be? But then it kind of sucked – I mean, it always sucks – because then all of the freshmen at orientation and all of the teachers had to stand out front of the building under the glaring hot summer sun. The staff did a lousy job of trying to take attendance, in a very lame attempt to make sure no kid got left behind in the blazing fire. They were calling out names and asking us all to call our parents and shit.

They really didn't have to make all that much of a fussy, annoying hassle. Would it really be _that_ bad if one kid was left behind to burn in the fire?

But anyway, I borrowed a phone from a classmate – god, the word classmate is weird. I do have my own phone, but I left it at home, sitting on my mess of a desk. I called my mom, but she only picked up on the ninth ring, because her yoga class is _much_ more important than her son almost burning to death. I told her to pick me up and she gave a loud sigh and told me she would be there in a few. I gave the kid – acne-covered face, beady brown eyes, and an uncharacteristic smile that looked like the edges of the grin was being held up with damn fishhooks – his phone back. I didn't ever really thank him, I just gave him a fake smile – clearly plastic – and jabbed his phone at his chest. I don't think that made him very happy.

After about a billion and one years, my mom picked me up, and of course she had to drive her damn century-old Toyota Highlander. There were still a bunch of other kids standing around the building, and they all stared as I had to climb into the passenger seat of that crumby-ass car. Obviously – I'll keep on saying it a million times – I don't really _care_ whatever the hell those kids think. But sometimes, no matter how much you don't care, things like that are still just embarrassing.

Besides that incident, my entire summer was kind of a boring flop. I played a lot of Call of Duty and went bowling and I actually managed to sneak into a bar – me, a 14 year old, holy fuck – but a bartender with grimy teeth and a stinker attitude kicked me out. He threatened to call the police on me. But that's really a different story.

I didn't think much about school for the rest of the summer, either. They sent out a couple of emails to the parents, trying to explain the incident that was orientation. I didn't get any of my classmates' numbers or anything, and I wasn't really interested in getting to know any of them. I didn't buy supplies –we kept on getting flyers tucked under the crack of our front door, advertising binders and graphing calculators. I ignored them. I don't need any preparation or anything for high school. It's just four years of conformity hell – fitting to what your classmates want, being the perfect student that your teachers want, being the goddamn kid that everyone wants you to be – and then it's over. I don't really know if I want to go to college.

But that's all irrelevant.

The next interesting part of this saga is actually the first day of school. I walked into Goode and was greeted with the abyss of fake-faces, the cheerleaders with their hair pulled into tight ponytails, uniforms already on because they'd be performing at the first-day-of-school assembly, crews of friends already gathering into cliques. I shouldered my backpack, readjusting the weight – it'd really been years since I carried an actual backpack.

I had a little dorky slip of paper my mom had printed out, with my locker and schedule and all. I headed to the number that was on the slip – there's not too many lockers in Goode, so it wasn't very hard to find. But on my way, I spotted two peculiarly familiar faces – bright orange, tight ringlets framing freckles and a skinny stature, dressed in a pink hoodie and a pair of paint-splattered jeans. And the boy – more lean than he'd been only a couple of weeks ago, black hair hanging wildly into his eyes like a poorly-styled toddler, bright green eyes that reminded me of my brother. I couldn't believe those two ruckless (it's a word I made myself, you see – a mix of reckless and ruckus) dolts hadn't been expelled. That gave _me_ some hope for the new school year. If red-bobble-head and almost-emo-kid could explode the band room and not get in trouble, then I could definitelyfly under the radar.

I gave an uncharacteristic grin – I hate smiling, I feel like it stretches out my face –

shouldering my backpack as I headed off to homeroom. Except it wasn't called homeroom, because _of course_ Goode has to be dumb and change all of the names for everything. It's called advisory, because we receive advising and guidance – which is absolute bullshit, I'll tell you. It was really just twenty high schoolers – a mix of lower and upperclassmen – lounging at the desks of a room, comparing schedules and catching up on what they did all summer as the teacher struggled to make sense of the new attendance sheet.

After that was the assembly. Percy Jackson – I had learned that was his name – really set the bar for entertainment very high at Goode. So I was very disappointed to find a completely normal assembly that was, unfortunately, not interrupted by the fire alarm or any reports of snare drums bursting into flames. I mostly picked at the cuticles on my nails and wished I was back in my bed. I didn't see Percy Jackson or redhead. I did see Blofis – the stepfather of Jackson – he looked nervous but excited. The way most teachers look on the first day of school. He seemed like a nice guy, so I was sort of sad to see I didn't have him for English this year.

I headed to biology – which was an absolute snore. All we did was go over the syllabus and talk about the rules or whatever. The mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell, I get it, I get it. I don't need a whole year of that. I really don't plan on becoming a biologist – actually, I really don't know what I will become. The future scares me quite a little. Sometimes I just wish time would end so then I wouldn't have to be faced with the inevitable hard choices that come with living.

Next was English – I had Dr. Boring. That's his real name, I swear. And guess who sat next to me? Percy fucking Jackson. I had a feeling that this class would be anything but _boring._ I basically looked at Jackson the entire class. He had all of his stuff laying in front of him – an organized binder with everything written in girly handwriting, a pencil case, a folder, and one of those green Nature Valley granola bars that crumbles everywhere once you take a single bite. I wasn't interested in that, though. I was more interested in the guy himself. Jackson had really dark bags under his eyes, a strand of grey hair, his hands nervously tapped against the desk, his foot rhythmically patted the ground, and I could make out the shape of a pen sticking out from his pocket – it looked like it was uncomfortably placed. Why wouldn't someone just put a pen in their pencil case? Isn't that, like, the purpose of pencil cases?

I tried to look at Dr. Boring for most of class, but I just couldn't resist some of the urge to just stare at Jackson. He radiated an aura of… differentness. In this damn school where everything seemed to be the same, boring thing – all of the students and teachers practically cardboard cutouts of each other, down to the school's typical slogan – Percy Jackson immediately seemed different. He seemed nervous and tense and his smile was rare but special – a lopsided grin with sincerity untamable by most teens. He was odd, real odd.

I have to admit – it disturbed me, it really did. How weird and different he seemed to be. I wanted to be able to know what was different about him because it ticked me off so much that I just began to have an insatiable desire to know. But I also sort of liked in. In what was shaping out to be the most boring four years of my life, Percy Jackson was a source of amusement, a mystery. I felt like that dude from _Scooby Doo –_ Shaggy or whatever. (Except I would like to think I have a nice-shaped chin and I'm not that irritatingly annoying.)

And that's how it began.

I started not doing well in English, because I would get so distracted. I thought, what does Percy Jackson do when he gets home? What does he think about? And I swear, I'm not gay, I'm really not, but it's just this state of mind that I let myself self into, where I'm so distracted by this anomaly in the shape of a teenager. Instead of close-reading _Lord of the Flies_ , I wanted to analyze Jackson. For most people, when they experience something this intensely exciting, it fades off after a while. They stop wondering as the mystery recedes into reality. But the longer I fucked with the idea of Percy Jackson, the weirder it seemed to get. He would leave class at strange times, make references to Pagan-like gods, and despite the fact that the guy was kind of hot, his only friend was the redhead. Her name was Rachel Dare, and she was in my World History class – she had a very cautious aura to her. She never let anyone sit closer than a foot and a half away from her; she talked with her nose up – but not in a snobbish manner. She was well guarded and well mannered, yet the paint-stains splattered across her jeans and her hippie shirts told me that she also had a relaxed, active side to her. Her and Jackson seemed like two peas in a pod. They were always whispering and laughing and eating lunch together and they seemed to understand one another in a way that no one else could.

That made my heart ache a little.

With my English grades slipping by, Dr. Boring suggested I get a tutor. That's how I ended up with Mr. Paul Blofis offering to tutor me. I visited him during lunch a few times, to help me fix up an essay. He's a nice teacher – he always took time out of lunch to help students, even students that weren't his. And he gave me some pretty good advice. Then he offered to tutor me. I went once. I thought maybe it would be cool – he is the stepfather of _Percy Jackson,_ I was sure I would learn something. But I went, and all we did was talk about my essay, and that was boring. I'm sure you already know about this.

But for the rest of the year, I would watch from afar. I would watch Percy Jackson and Rachel Elizabeth Dare – Jackson had nicknamed her "RED" – tease each other at lunch. I watched as Percy Jackson distantly stared outside the window of our English classroom, almost like he was looking for something, like he was expecting a disaster or some other batshit crazy crap. I don't know what it was – I really couldn't place it – but I swear, there was something special about that boy. The world, the air seemed to shift around him. Once or twice, he would abruptly leave class – "I need to throw up" he'd say, before dashing out. Once I asked him if he had an extra pen or pencil – he said no. But I knew that damn pen was in his back pocket, it always was.

I really don't know exactly what I was looking for, but I knew I wasn't insane. Well, I was _pretty sure_ I wasn't insane. I jut _knew_ there was something absolutely strange, something so terrifyingly, exhilaratingly unique about Percy Jackson. And as much as I watched – _observed,_ some might even say – him the entirety of my freshmen year, I only grew more and more confused by his habits, by the way he talked, by the way he knew _Latin –_ a dead language – so well. Whenever there was a word with a Latin root in class, the teacher would always call on Percy Jackson, and he always knew the word, like it was a second nature. Who the _hell_ knows Latin? Well, apparently the same boy who cursed by saying "gods" – as in plural – and whenever it would rain, he would roll his eyes and murmur something about his uncle. What the fuck, you know?

That's why, when we had our meetings with counselors mid-freshmen year to discuss our "goals," I had one goal for high school. It wasn't good grades, or friends, or a GPA. I wanted to figure out _what the fuck_ was up with Percy Jackson, that fucking weirdo.

(I didn't tell that to my counselor, obviously.)

 **chapter one is officially** _ **done**_ **.**

 **the storyline really hasn't picked up, yet. there's a lot of exposition. (but i have a reason for it, don't worry.) i've planned the plot of this and everything all out and stuff – which means this is going to be my first actual multi-chapter story! – and i'm so excited, because isn't that sort of cool? so anyway, expect that in the foreseeable future.**

 **lastly, if you liked this so far – it's gonna get better, i swear, but also – check out some of my other stories! & please, **_**please**_ **feel free to review.**


	2. Chapter 2

**So the beginning of this covers the last of freshman year and then goes on to the beginning of sophomore year – which would be post-** _ **The Last Olympian**_ **and just before** _ **The Lost Hero.**_ **Narrator says some offensive things – don't take 'em to heart.**

The second-to-last day of freshmen year, I stayed after school so I could empty out the contents of my locker in a garbage bag. Most people didn't use their lockers all that much – they just carried around backpacks stuffed with all their books. But I took biology, so I needed gloves and goggles for the lab days, and some other classes that had a lot of heavy textbooks. I didn't want to stay late on the last day of school to haul home several tons of useless shit, so today was the only day. What's that saying? _Carpe diem,_ except this was sort of the opposite. Whatever.

As I dumped an assortment of dull pencils, broken pens, and worksheets into the heavy-duty Glad bag, I realized I wasn't the only one left in the hallway. The little fucker was here as well, strolling down with his hands in his pockets – Percy Jackson. My seat in English had been moved a few months ago, so I really hadn't been looking at him as much lately. But that didn't mean I loosed any interest. I still hadn't even come close to cracking the mystery that was personified in the form of the black-haired boy.

"Oh, hey," he said, pausing his walk to look at me, "You sat next to me in English."

"Yeah, I did," I sheepishly replied, putting my hand to the back of my neck, "you helped me when we started talking about the mythological unit and stuff. I think you quizzed me on the different Olympians and the monsters. All of those names really sound alike." I paused, for a second. "You were really good at it." I reminded him. Fuck. I didn't need to remind him about something he clearly _knew._

"Oh, yeah." He looked wistful, "All of that reminds me of my own family," Percy Jackson brushed off the topic and gave gracefully practiced tug of the lips, "So what're you doing the day before our last day, huh?"

"Just empting out my locker," I made a loose gesture to the trash bag, which I set on the floor.

"Throwing it all out?"

"Oh, no," I shook my head, "Just bringing it home. What're you still doing here?"

"Just waiting for Paul – er, Mister Blofis – to finish up some work. He drives me home and stuff." There was a moment of silence. "So are you doing anything cool this summer?"

"Not really. Just staying home."

"No camp or anything like that?"

I shook my head. "I've never really been to one." I gave a minute of thought "My family's going on a small trip to the beach in July, I guess."

"What beach?" Percy Jackson immediately seemed intrigued by that.

"Just Main Beach up in the Hamptons." I shrugged it off. Some kids would love that, going to the beach and all. They'd love making plans with friends who also happened to be in the Hamptons and mixing tequila and vodka – a terrible mix, I'd never recommend it. But I? I hate it. It's my mom and dad and me, and we get a little two-bedroom motel room with thin walls. They always go out for dinner and drink a lot and leave me back at the rental or whatever, to just flip through the channels on the TV. My mom says if I have friends, I could meet up with them – presumptuous of her to assume I actually want to spend my free time _socializing._ And she knows I don't have friends, and while she's out with my dad drinking that dumbly expensive wine, I'm back under those thin sheets on the bed that feels like cardboard, scrolling through my iPod. Exactly what I do when I'm _not_ at the beach. It's basically just a trip for them with me tagging a long. I liked it better when my brother wasn't dead, because then we'd actually do stuff I liked, and we would go out and get ice cream and the entire thing was just _better._

Percy Jackson snapped me back to reality. "Hampton is the mix of _ham –_ that means home – and _tun –_ which means town. Hometown."

"What language is that?"

"Old English," Percy hummed, "they don't really know where those words came from, but it's pretty much from Latin."

"That's really nice." I stared at him wistfully. "I mean, how you know Latin."

Percy looked like he was in deep thought for a second. "I don't really know it. Not very well, at least," he finally responded. "I've just learned it over the past few summers and stuff." A pause. "My camp does a lot of Latin stuff, I guess. But one of my friends there has made it her personal job to teach me until I'm perfect at it, though. She's a perfectionist. She's always pestering me, telling me I can get better and stuff." That made him frown.

I really didn't like that. How when he mentioned _her_ – literally, just a three-letter pronoun – he got this ghost of a smile and a light in his eyes. You could tell that whoever this was, he really liked _her._ I knew that maybe I shouldn't have been so judgmental or whatever, but it made me repulsed. Disgusted. _Her._ He seemed to value "her" and her opinions a lot. And it seemed that all she really did was tell him he wasn't good enough. I could relate to that, at least.

Well, I was about to tell him that the fact that he still _knows_ a _dead_ language is pretty damn weird and impressive, and ask him what kind of summer camp he even went to that the kids learned _Latin_ for _fun_ , but he cut me off, going back to the original topic. Damn.

"But anyway, the Hamptons are really cool. I like going up by there. My mom and I like to go to Montauk."

"Do you like to swim and stuff?"

"Yeah. The water up there is usually pretty great, too. Sometimes I just feel like I could spend my entire life there." He got a bit of a dreamy look in his eye. You know how most high school guys get that lustful kind of look in their eyes when they look at a cover of _Sports Illustrated?_ That's the look that Percy Jackson seemed to get when he talked about the fucking beach.

I was going to ask Jackson something else – I wanted more information, really, like why does this dude seem to have a love affair with the _ocean_ – but Mister Blofis walked into the hall, dressed in a tragic light beige fleece and a pair of khakis that screamed _I'm a middle-aged teacher_. He usually waved towards students – that's courtesy, you know – but he was holding a bunch of papers and his computer or whatever. "Ready to go, Percy?" He called out.

Percy gave a nod in Mister Blofis's direction, and turned back to me with a grin. "Well, I gotta go. Have a good last day, tomorrow." He headed down the hall towards his stepfather, and I watched as the two of them headed in the direction of the exit, leaving me alone under the florescent lighting and the dirty tiles and the sloppily cared for lockers.

I tried to go back to my locker-cleaning ordeal, but I swore I could see the ghost of Percy Jackson still standing in front of me, that characteristic lopsided smile slapped on his face with practiced ease, shifting his hands and feet the way he always does. He has ADHD, I know that – he's mentioned it to some other people; he's not ashamed of it or anything. But the way he moves, the way he moves isn't like a normal person with ADHD. It's more nervous, more of a tick than a nature, it's less erratic and more like he knows about it and it's almost like he's hiding something, like a tell. Or maybe I'm just confusing ADD and ADHD. I'm not really a psychologist or anything like that. I really don't know all that much about mental well being in general.

I stared at the empty space in front of me for a little bit longer. He really wasn't there. Maybe I'm going insane. I hope I'm not going insane or have a breakdown or anything like that. That would really suck. It really would, because then everyone would talk about me and my parents would be disappointed – when are they not? – and Percy Jackson would hear my name and scrunch his nose and get an uncharacteristic critical look in his eyes as he mutters, "Oh, him? That loser?"

I tried to get my mind off that.

I thought about my conversation with Percy Jackson. As I almost violently shoved a copy of _The Crucible_ down, I thought. Who the fuck has a family like the goddamn Olympians? "Whorish" – that's how my mother would describe the Olympians. She hates infidelity; she hates the girls she deems "sluts" when she sees the issues of _People_ magazinelined up on the shelves of the bookstore. If the Olympians were real, I swear to god, my mother would be their greatest enemy. (My father prefers the term "bastards" – that's how he would describe them all.)

That night when I got home, I threw the garbage bag in the bag of my closet – right next to the accumulating pile of dark clothes that were washed approximately once a year. I could still see his green eyes – really a lot like my brothers, but I swear that's not why I think of Percy Jackson all the time – if I pictured them hard enough. I was really glad I had already taken all of my finals, since I really wasn't able to focus that night. I had some homework – a couple of teachers had assigned short prompts or whatever and surveys about our progression during the school year. But what were they really gonna do? Flunk me out of a class because I didn't do the little last assignment? It's not like I had a good GPA to maintain, anyway.

God, that's the inconvenient thing about not being homeschooled. When I was at home, I didn't take my academics or anything seriously. It felt too casual – having a couch as my classroom and all. But now that I'm back at an actual school, I can't even _think_ about my academics a lot because the people are so distracting. Fucking Percy Jackson. Just the way he moved his lips and everything kept ringing like distorted echoes in my head, like a record on repeat.

The next day, I was hoping to see Percy Jackson. I only really caught a glimpse of him in the hallway, smiling happily. I saw him again in English, too. Of course, Doctor Boring made us do work on the _last day_ of school. He made us all fill out a sheet about how we're going to use what we learned this year in a real-life context, which wouldn't have been so bad, except it was graded. _Graded!_ Can you believe the atrocity of that man?

Percy really seemed to be struggling to write. I'd overheard from some other students that he had dyslexia. I had a friend – well, friend is a strong word; more like a peer – in elementary school who had that. Seems to suck. But I always thought it was strange that he was able to basically know three languages – Greek, English, and Latin, even though he claims he's not good at the latter – despite that. He's like someone you'd find giving motivational talks about "overcoming the obstacles life gives you," except I really couldn't picture Percy Jackson ever doing that phony shit.

Before you could even snatch a pencil from my clenched hand, the school day was over. I do have a pretty relentless grip, though, so that analogy doesn't mean very much. I found myself a little sad – I'll barely even admit it – to leave Goode. I'd miss the terrible smells and the arrogant teachers and weird cheerleaders, and Percy Jackson. That boy didn't even know my name. But I'd miss him all summer long.

I really shouldn't have missed Goode, since I would return that fall. The last day of freshmen year is kind of fake, since it's really _not_ a last day. Even though all of the kids in my grade celebrated their "last day", we'd still step into that school approximately 540 more times. That's just an estimate, obviously – for some of us, that number is way less. But the point stands; that really doesn't seem like a last day to me.

The summer was the same as every summer seems to be – a fevery dream of freedom and boredom. We went to the beach, alright. I made sure to stand in the drawings of the waves, the riptides as the waters pulled back into the ocean, and thought of Percy Jackson all the while. I felt kind of bad, since I don't like the beach – the sand feels gross on my feet, the heat makes me feel like I'm melting pudding, and the children that vacation up in the Hamptons in the summer are all bratty. I saw a girl throw her Louis Vuitton into the ocean because she asked her dad for Gucci instead, I swear. But Percy Jackson really would have loved it. It made me feel bad that he wasn't here in my place.

I usually don't feel very bad for people, I don't think. Other people often don't seem worthy of much empathy. Life sucks for all of us, I get it. But I don't know how, but Jackson would always find a way to crawl into my head like a little termite and make me think about him, and it made me realize that, in some weird way, I kind of love the guy. His grin is nice and all and he really likes the beach, and he seems smart in a sort of dim-witted way. It's just endearing, that's all.

I almost considered buying him a sweatshirt from the souvenir shop up on the beach. He likes wearing sweatshirts, I noticed. He wore them all of freshmen year, pretty much, and he liked the pockets, because he'd stick his hands in those. He really liked blue clothes, too. And orange shirts – I couldn't tell if he kept wearing the same orange shirt over and over, or circulated very, very similar-looking orange shirts every couple of days. I didn't end up buying him a sweatshirt since it might have seemed creepy, and he probably wouldn't like it anyway.

I didn't really do anything the rest of the summer. I got into some music. I found some good recommendations on some old web forums – "Pumped Up Kicks" and Aerosmith, though I wasn't as interested in the latter nearly as much. I tried to take some practice tests – sophomore year means we've gotta take the PSATs and the Pre-ACTs or whatever. I really didn't like the practice tests. I could never focus. I played more games, too. I tried to sort through some of my brother's stuff that had been scattered around my room.

As July came to a draw and the school year grew closer, I actually started shopping for school supplies. I got some rulers and a couple of nice mechanical pencils – not the cheap, dingy ones that are disposable – and a new thermos to bring to school. It was kind of sad. I missed school, and I really missed seeing Percy Jackson all summer, since that was kind of something I looked forward to everyday. But going back made the anxiety in my stomach crawl a little. That place was an infestation.

Around mid-August, the whole city started going wanky. It was like the band-room incident, but more widespread. Time seemed so flexible. There were days that flew by, that barely seemed to exist like a sleepy haze, and other times that felt so prolonged. The streets were a mess – cars scattered, alarms blaring, people caught up in the chaos. The reporters blamed it on a storm, a really bad storm, except there was no footage of the storm, no classic news reports, and I certainly had no recollection of strong winds tearing past my windows or flooding or anything like that.

I thought maybe I was going insane. Maybe it was because I wasn't taking the depression meds they gave me. I don't even have depression; I just have a dead brother. And so somehow, I conceived these little lies in my head that I was going insane.

But I really try not to think about the rest of that summer too much.

On the first day of sophomore year, I decided to tape a photo of my brother – one of his old school photos, the edges fraying – into one of my notebooks. Just as a reminder. Something told me this year was going to be rough – the shaky weather, the tumultuous state of the city lately – it all gave me a bad feeling. I was hoping that if I ever felt really down, really shitty, I'd remember to look at the photo. (Spoiler alert: that photo would continue, taped on the underside cover, in my forgotten notebook in my locker, until it would be seized with the rest of the evidence. But I'm getting ahead of myself).

I saw Percy Jackson that morning, walking through the halls. Rachel Dare wasn't here this year – she had made a last-minute switch to some ladies prep school, if the rumors were true. But Jackson looked like he had already made other friends; he was chatting with some freshman, maybe giving them advice or some shit, as he shouldered his blue Jansport backpack.

I had chemistry with Jackson. I'd heard he was freakishly good at biology last year – I know, for someone who has no friends, I sure do still hear a lot of the chat going around the school. I heard that he got all of the marine questions right, that he knew cell division and osmosis like the back of his very hand. The teacher accused him of cheating, apparently, but he really wasn't. "Trouble always seems to come for that kid," I overheard some of the other teachers say. I wondered what that meant.

(I wonder if they said that about me.)

It only really made sense in my head that Percy Jackson would be good at chemistry. Biology and chemistry are both sciences, right? But apparently the property of transitivity (hey, Mister Donalds was right – I _am_ using my geometry knowledge in real life) doesn't apply to Percy Jackson. We did some get-to-know the basics thing for chemistry and the teacher called on him three times and he was totally clueless.

The only other class that somewhat intrigued me was English. I had it with Mister Blofis. I know that I quit on him after one tutoring session, but I'm pretty sure he still likes me. I think. Today we just went over the syllabus and shit, but he did give me a smile. That counts for something, right?

I did talk to Percy Jackson for a few seconds. It was right after last period was dismissed, in the crowded hallways filled with shuffling shoes and floating bacteria. I saw him and stared right at me; he caught my eyes and gave me a friendly wave before making his way through the sea of bodies.

"How was your summer?" I could barely hear his voice as people bustled by. I tried to focus on just him.

"It was good. We went to the beach. I thought of you." I realized right after I said the goddamn second part that I sounded like some weird freak, and I almost said something to take it back, but Percy cut me off.

"That's cool! I'll catch up with you more later." He was almost oblivious to what I said. He disappeared just as fast as he came, swept away into the quick tide of kids eager to get home from their first day. I felt a smile tug at my lips as I watched him go away. High school sucks, sophomore year might be a major L, but Percy Jackson was one mystery that would stay.

The rest of the week was really what you'd expect – girls already worrying about their homecoming dresses ("ruffles or lace?"), the cheerleaders trying to increase school prep with hair tied up in high ponytails, the always-present "GOODE IS GOOD" sign remained hung above the lockers. I didn't get the chance to talk to Percy much more.

In fact, nothing really happened for the next few weeks. I could go on, explaining the absolute bores of Algebra II, the totally unnecessary _Frankenstein_ pop quiz in English (Mister Blofis almost made a pained face as he passed the papers out, saying, "You know, I really hate doing this,"), or the fact that my new locker is located right next to the boys' bathroom, which smelled like piss and the school's probably-toxic, watered down cleaning spray or whatever. One girl – dark, silky hair down to her bust, a bit of a fat stature you'd see in the "before" pictures of dieting ads, a maroon sweater she liked to pair with silver studs and black leggings – tried to convince me to join all of this different clubs, but I really wasn't into that. I have a general rule about work in high school: generally try to avoid it. I've got the same rule for people, too.

(Percy Jackson is really the only exception.)

(I don't get lonely.)

 **hi!**

 **in order from non-important to important-ish:**

 **i did the math, and this story takes place around 2008 or so, but yes there are references to "pumped up kicks" which is released in 2010, but i ~really don't care and please don't tell me about it~ the integrity of this story is not based around its historical accuracy but the portrayal of emotions thank u very much.**

 **that brings me to my next point which is that most "mortals looking in on demigods/percy's life" fics are pretty happy, a little fluffy sprinkled with teenage jealousy and stereotypical jocks and whatever. i wanted to do something darker, something that was kind of new, a mix of the high school clichés and the dark underbelly of obsession and diving deeper into the world of how** _ **brutally**_ **tragic some people can be. (also the narrator is offensive – i know, i know. it's an integral part of the character. his opinions do** _ **not**_ **reflect my own.)**

 **that being said, if you're sensitive to violence or anything of that manner, you probably want to quit after the next chapter. i haven't really sat down to write it all out yet, but i can tell you that in chapter 4 or so, things get kinda dark** _ **.**_

 **that'll probably be out in a few weeks. maybe months – who knows? so look out for that! see ya on the flipside.**


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